


Are You Kidding Me?

by my_mad_fatuation



Category: My Mad Fat Diary
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, IKEA
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-06
Updated: 2016-03-06
Packaged: 2018-07-14 06:37:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7157660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/my_mad_fatuation/pseuds/my_mad_fatuation
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A twenty-something Finn has just got a new job and is moving to a new flat, so he enlists the help of his good friend (and crush) Rae to pick out all new furnishings from IKEA. But they get stuck there after the store closes! Oh no! What will happen?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Are You Kidding Me?

**Author's Note:**

> This story was inspired by this prompt: http://otpprompts.tumblr.com/post/139604213251/imagine-your-otp-getting-stuck-in-an-ikea-store

“Are you kidding me?” Rae said with her hands on her hips.

“What?” said Finn, looking up at her from his seat.

“The KLIPPAN?” she said. “Seriously?”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“Oh, it’s fine, you know, for prison.”

“Well, it’s affordable.”

“You seem to be forgetting how much this new job is paying you. You can afford something nicer than this shit.”

He stood up. “Fine, what do you suggest?”

“What about this one?” She pointed to a sofa next to them.

“KARLSTAD?”

“It’s got clean lines and it’s not super expensive.” She took seat on it. “And it’s reasonably comfortable.”

He sat down next to her and bounced a little. “I guess.”

“You’re getting it,” she said. She pulled out the shopping list from her pocket and started to write down the information from the sofa’s tag.

“You know, I asked you to come with me to IKEA to advise me, not make all my decisions for me,” he said.

“Yeah, but it takes you a year to make a fucking decision, doesn’t it?”

Finn scowled but didn’t say anything.

“You move next week and you’ve got no furniture,” she added. “This doesn’t have to be the stuff you keep for the rest of your life, but you need something now.”

“Fine. What’s next?”

“You need a bed.”

“You mean I can’t just sleep on a mattress on the floor?” he said sarcastically.

“Oh, right, you need a mattress, too.”

They made their way over to the mattresses and started sitting on a few of them.

“Oh, Finn, you have to try this one!” said Rae, lying back on one mattress. Finn came and sat on the other side. “You have to lie down and try it,” she said, pulling on his shoulder.

He climbed on reluctantly. “Oh my god,” he said. “I have never been so comfortable in my entire life.”

“Get this one.”

“Wait, how much is it?” He looked at the tag and broke into laughter. “I may be making money now, but I can’t justify that!”

“How much do you think mattresses cost?”

He pointed to a flimsy foam mattress nearby. “That one’s only eighty quid!”

“And it’s shit, Finn. Come on.” She pulled out the list again and wrote down the mattress details.

“Wait, wait,” he said, reading over her shoulder. “I don’t need a double.”

“You’re too old for a single bed.”

“I’ve had a single bed up ‘till now and it works fine for me.”

“And how many girls have spent the night in that thing?”

“That… That’s irrelevant.” He felt uncomfortable at the idea of Rae thinking about his sex life and wanted to steer the conversation away.

“Well, you still need to pick out a bed frame anyway.” They crossed the walkway to where the bed frames were set up. “I think you should get the MALM with the drawers under the bed,” she said.

“Why would I want drawers under the bed?” he asked, frowning.

“For extra storage. It’s just dead space otherwise.” She said this like it should have been obvious to him.

“Yeah, well where’s the monster under the bed supposed to live?”

“It can live in the cupboard!”

He smiled. He liked when she got annoyed.

An announcement played over the PA system letting everyone know that the store would be closing in ten minutes.

Rae smacked Finn in the arm. “I told you we shouldn’t have stopped for meatballs first! Now we don’t have time to finish shopping.”

“We can just pick out the stuff now and I’ll order it online.”

“Fine, then you need a chest of drawers—”

“More drawers? How many drawers do I need?”

“You have clothes, don’t you?”

They continued along the demarcated path on the ground but Rae stopped before they got to the bedroom storage section when she saw a mock setup of a tiny flat.

“It’s kind of amazing what they can do with such a small space, isn’t it?” she said as she stepped inside.

“I’m just glad my new place is bigger than this,” Finn replied, looking around with distaste. “I don’t want it to look like an IKEA catalogue, either.”

“Well, that’s just too damn bad, as long as I have a say in it.”

“Why do you have a say in it?”

“You asked for my help.”

“That may have been an error in judgment.”

She gave him a sarcastic smile before continuing to wander through the flat. “Jesus. Look at how tiny this shower is. You can barely fit a person in there!” She laughed.

“It’s fine, look,” he said, stepping inside.

“Alright, so you can fit, but I couldn’t.”

“Sure you can.” He grabbed her arm and pulled her in so they were squished up against one another.

“I don’t think this is a two-person shower,” she said.

“Well, not in a fun way, no. Oh shit!” He quickly closed the shower curtain around them.

“What?” she asked, but he clamped his hand over her mouth.

He waited until after he heard footsteps approach and fade away to let her go. “I didn’t want us to get caught in here.”

“Fine, well, let’s get out of here before—“

The main lights went out and were replaced by secondary low lighting that made everything kind of grey.

“Shi-hi-hit,” Finn laughed.

Rae opened the curtain and forced her way out of the shower stall. “It’s not funny.”

“Relax, we’ll just head to the exit and…” He trailed off when they got out of the mock flat and stepped into the main showroom area. “Which way is the exit again?”

“Well, we came from…that way,” Rae said uncertainly. “So if we just backtrack, we’ll get there eventually, right?”

“Aren’t there usually shortcuts though?”

“That’ll make us more lost. Let’s just follow the path.”

They made their way back the way they came, or so they thought, but stopped once they realized they hadn’t seen any of this yet.

“We didn’t come through kitchens before, did we?” Finn asked slowly.

“Shit,” said Rae. “I got all turned around in that shower. Let’s head back.”

“Wait, we’re probably close to the end now, let’s just keep going.”

They argued for a couple of minutes before she gave in and they kept going forwards. They made it through the children’s section and back to the start, but when they arrived the stairs were gated and the elevator was shut down.

“Fuuuuuuu—“

“Look, we’ll just call Archie, alright?” Finn said, pulling out his phone.

“I didn’t think he was working today.”

“He wasn’t, but he’ll be able to get in here and let us out, yeah?” He brought up Archie’s number and called him. “Hey, Arch, are you busy?”

“It’s Friday night, why the fuck would I be busy?” Archie replied.

“We need your help, mate. We’re at your store right now—“

“Right now? But it’s closed.”

“We know that! We’re locked in!”

“Wait, who’s ‘we’?”

“Me and Rae.”

Finn could practically heard Archie raise his eyebrows. “Is that so?”

“Just shut up and get us out of here.”

“I can’t.”

“What do you mean you can’t? You work here!”

“I don’t have the keys to the whole damn building!”

Finn sighed loudly and tried not to look at Rae who appeared very stressed out hearing only half of the conversation. “So what do we do?”

“I can try to get ahold of one of the store managers to come let you out, but it might take a while.”

“Alright, well, call me when you know what’s going on.”

“What’s happening?” Rae asked once Finn had hung up.

“Archie’s getting one of the store managers to come let us out,” he said. “But it might be a while.”

“Oh.” She looked at him like, “What now?”

They went back to the children’s section and started pulling out stuffed animals, making them talk and jump around from shelf to shelf. Then they made their way to the kitchen section and pretended they were on a cooking show. Afterwards they returned to the living room area and played “house” in each of the mock living room setups.

“I like this layout,” Finn said, leaning back on a sofa and putting his feet up on the coffee table. “I like how it’s open to the kitchen so you can easily go make me a cuppa.”

“Why would I be making you tea?” said Rae.

“Aren’t you my wife in this scenario?”

“So? Make your own damn tea.”

Before he could respond, his phone went off. It was Archie letting him know that he and one of the store managers would be there in the next hour or so.

“Alright, thanks Arch,” said Finn. He told Rae what was going on but she didn’t look pleased.

“I’m so sick of being here,” she grumbled.

“Fine,” he said as he got up. “I’ll make you tea, then.”

He went to the attached kitchen and looked through all the cupboards until he found a couple of mugs, which he then brought back to the sofa. Rae looked reluctantly amused.

“Do you think I should get a TV this big?” he asked, stretching his arms across the back of the sofa. He nodded his head towards the entertainment unit in front of them.

“Oh, at least, yeah.” Rae laughed a little.

“It’s going to be nice not having to fight over the telly with three other guys.”

“You’ll just have to fight with your wife, yeah?” She poked him in the side.

“Right, I forgot about that.” He squeezed her shoulders. “Forgive me?”

She leaned against him and he kissed the top of her head. He could get used to this. No, wait, that would be weird. Sure, he used to have a crush on Rae, but they’ve been friends for years and what he felt now was just comfortable around her. He didn’t want to mess with that.

“I’m really tired,” she said, yawning.

“It’s not even ten yet.”

“I know, but I had a shitty day and I just want to go to bed.”

“There’s, a bed right over there,” he said, pointing across the aisle.

“I’m not going to sleep in that bed!”

“Why not?” Finn got up and headed towards the bed. He sat on the edge and lay down, making sure to keep his feet dangling off the side.

Rae followed. “This is ridiculous,” she said, their heads meeting in the middle.

“I thought you were really tired and wanted to go to bed.”

“My own bed.”

“Ah, you should’ve specified.” He turned his head to look at her. “This is quite nice, actually.”

She turned to look at him as well. “What is?”

“The double bed.”

“I told ya.”

“Who knows, maybe I will end up sharing it with somebody.” Shit, why did he say that? That was weird. “I—I mean, uh…”

“Obviously you’ll be sharing it with me,” she said.

“What?”

“I’m your wife, after all.”

“Oh right, right.”

“Though I think when I stay over for real I’ll get the bed and you’ll get the sofa.”

“But it’s _my_ bed—Wait, why would you be staying over?”

“When we binge-watch _Game of Thrones_ and it’s too late for me to catch the bus home since you moved so far away. Clearly.”

Finn scoffed. “My mistake, then.”

“We should really get up now or I’m going to literally fall asleep here, though,” said Rae.

“Go ahead, I’ll wake you when it’s time to go.”

“Yeah, right, you’d probably just leave me here to be found in the morning.”

“I wouldn’t!” he laughed.

“Fine.” She sat up and took her shoes off before lying back down on her side, facing him. “Goodnight, husband.”

He rolled to face her as well, making sure to keep his shoes off the bed. “Goodnight, wife.”

She pressed forward and kissed him square on the lips before drawing back and closing her eyes. He was gobsmacked.

It was just part of the game, he thought to himself. She didn’t mean it. She was just playing along, pretending they were a couple. It wasn’t real.

He watched her drift off for a while, and maybe drifted off a little himself, because the next thing he knew Archie was calling him.

“Where are you?” Archie asked impatiently.

“We’re up in the showroom,” Finn told him. “We’ll meet you by the elevators, yeah?”

Rae was awake by the time he hung up. “Are we going now?” she said.

“Yeah, we’re getting out.” He helped her sit up and she got her shoes back on. “I’ll take you home and you can go to sleep, alright?”

“Ah, you’re too good to me, Finn,” she teased.

“Tell your friends.”

When they got to the elevator again, they saw Archie standing there with a woman they assumed was the store manager. Neither of them looked pleased to have their Friday night taken up like this, but Finn appreciated that Archie came with her so he could maybe defend them a little.

Finn and Rae tried to explain how they ended up stuck there, but the store manager was not amused at all. They made their way quickly to Finn’s car and broke into laughter once they were in.

“This was not how I was expecting to spend my evening, I must admit,” said Finn.

“It was kind of fun though, right?” said Rae.

He gave her a small smile. “Yeah, I suppose.” His smile faded as he stared straight ahead with his hands on the wheel.

“Y’alright?” she asked, brushing his arm.

“Why’d you kiss me?”

“What?”

“Before you went to sleep, you kissed me.”

“Oh, I dunno. We were just goofin’ around, yeah?”

“Right.” His hand hesitated over the ignition. “So you didn’t mean it?”

She paused for a moment. “Did you want me to mean it?”

“Do you want me to want you to mean it?”

“I asked you first.”

“Whatever,” he said, shaking his head as he started the car.

She let out a sigh. “Fine. Let’s just say, there’s a reason I wanted you to get the bigger bed…”

He turned to face her and she covered her face with her hands.

“Just forget it.” She laughed nervously.

“I’ll get the bigger bed, then,” he said after a minute.

She peeked through her fingers at him. “What?”

“As long as I don’t have to sleep on the sofa when you stay over…”

“We’ll see about that,” she said, dropping her hands.

He leaned over to kiss her when there was a knock on the window.

“Oi, lovebirds,” said Archie. “Get out of here!”

Finn flipped him off before pulling out of the spot, and Rae laughed.

“Right,” he said as they left the parking lot. “I’m taking you to bed.”

“I’m actually not that tired anymore, surprisingly enough,” she replied.

“All the better.”

 


End file.
